|
 Tsipras faces a tough Syriza central committee session on Thursday
with many activists angered by his acceptance of bailout terms more
stringent than those voters rejected in a July 5 referendum.
In a clear warning to party rebels, Tsipras said he could be forced
to call early elections if he no longer had a parliamentary
majority, and suggested an emergency party congress could be held in
early September.
At the same time, Tsipras is under pressure from Greece's creditors
to go beyond the two packages of so-called prior actions passed by
parliament and include unpopular steps to curb early retirement and
tax breaks for farmers, EU sources say.
"I know well the framework of the deal we signed at the euro zone
summit on July 12," he told Sto Kokkino radio. "We will implement
these commitments, irrespective of whether we agree with it or not.
Nothing beyond that."
With Greece close to the financial abyss last month, the government
closed the country's banks for three weeks under a capital controls
regime, and Tsipras was later forced to make the major concessions
on reform and austerity in order to open negotiations on a third
bailout worth up to 86 billion euros.
A European Commission spokeswoman declined to say what additional
measures were expected of Athens before the conclusion of the new
bailout, although she said earlier this week that more reforms were
due before the first aid is disbursed.
Tsipras said Greece's primary budget balance before debt service
would break even at best or show a deficit this year, depending on a
financial situation that has deteriorated sharply since the
imposition of capital controls on June 28.
The terms for launching the bailout talks that began this week did
not include specific fiscal targets but Athens had previously been
expected to achieve a primary surplus equivalent to 1 percent of
annual Greek economic output this year and 2 percent in 2016.
Germany's Der Spiegel magazine reported that the creditors were
willing to allow a gentler fiscal path taking account of Greece's
return to recession, provided Athens pursued economic and
administrative reforms more energetically.
"PLAN C"
With the banking squeeze easing, the European Central Bank kept its
cap on emergency funding for Greek banks unchanged on Wednesday
after Athens did not request another increase, a source familiar
with the decision said.
The stock market remained closed because authorities are still
waiting for a ministerial decree needed to resume trading after a
nearly five-week shutdown, a senior official at the Greek securities
regulator said.
The Athens Stock Exchange has been shut since June 29 after the
government closed the banks and imposed the capital controls to stop
a run on deposits by savers and companies.
European Commission spokeswoman Nina Andreeva, keen not to add to
Tsipras's domestic problems, praised the conduct of the bailout
talks so far, brushing aside talk of issues over security and
access.
"We are satisfied with the smooth and constructive cooperation with
the Greek authorities and that should now allow us to progress as
swiftly as possible," she told reporters.
[to top of second column] |
Intensive preparatory talks with officials from the Commission, the
ECB, the International Monetary Fund and the euro zone's rescue
fund, the European Stability Mechanism, began on Monday. The
creditors' Athens mission chiefs are due to start negotiations with
Greek ministers later this week.
Andreeva played down critical comments by Tsipras on the bailout
made to his domestic audience, saying the commitments made at the
summit were being carried out as foreseen.
Tsipras faces an uncertain vote in the 200 member Syriza central
committee with sacked former energy minister Panagiotis Lafazanis
leading a leftist faction that rejected the July 13 deal and is
demanding a tougher line with the creditors.
Compounding his problems, former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis
continues to pour abuse on the agreement in daily media interviews
and articles, accusing the creditors of trampling on Greek
sovereignty and justifying his own secret planning while in office
to set up an alternative currency.
"It was a financial war," Varoufakis told Germany's Stern magazine
in an interview released on Wednesday. "Today you don't need tanks
to beat someone. You've got your banks."
European Economics Commissioner Pierre Moscovici laughed off
Varoufakis's disclosures about a "Plan B" he had developed with a
covert five-member unit that would have involved hacking into
citizens' tax codes to create a parallel payments system.
"This is perhaps something for domestic politics. It's a career
plan, a Plan C for Mr Varoufakis," Moscovici told France's Europe 1
radio. "Everything done in a dilettante way is an absurdity."
In Germany, Greece's biggest creditor country, the leader of
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian sister party warned that a Greek
exit from the euro zone would cause "utter chaos" but might have to
be accepted if Athens did not implement reforms.
"No one can predict the consequences of a Grexit other than that a
lot of Greece's debts would have to be written off and at the same
time monetary help would be necessary," Bavarian state premier Horst
Seehofer told German newspaper Die Welt.
"On top of that there would be utter chaos. If Greece were not
prepared to reform, a path like that would have to be accepted but
one shouldn't strive for it oneself or organize it," he added.
(Additional reporting by Deepa Babington in Athens and Francesco
Guarascio in Brussels; Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by David
Stamp)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
